Lonely Translationshttps://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com
The translation business seen from the InsideWed, 08 Mar 2017 14:41:17 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/4f2f83e60aa97ec4064629d8b048db43?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngLonely Translationshttps://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com
Looking for a job as a translator, or are you thinking of studying translation and interpretation? Here’s a Guide to getting into the Translation businesshttps://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/looking-for-a-job-as-a-translator-or-are-you-thinking-of-studying-translation-and-interpretation-heres-a-guide-to-getting-into-the-translation-business/
https://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/looking-for-a-job-as-a-translator-or-are-you-thinking-of-studying-translation-and-interpretation-heres-a-guide-to-getting-into-the-translation-business/#respondTue, 21 Oct 2014 10:06:33 +0000http://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/?p=210Read More]]>What qualifications do you need?

Strictly speaking, qualifications are not necessary to be eligible to work as a translator, although for some areas such as court interpreting, you need to do a special course and get an official certificate. Where qualifications do add value is in the finer techinical points of translation and they will also lend credibility to your profile.

As Brunner points out, “For the more complex translations, the really important aspects to observe are professional formatting and layout, a proper command of translation software and a lot of other aspects which are not strictly connected to linguistics. So I only ever work with people who have a translation degree or even better, an interpreting degree, just to make sure they are up to the task technically.”

How many languages do you need to speak?

Most translators and interpreters speak three or four languages and you will obviously need to speak at least two languages fluently. Remember though that it’s a case of quality and not quantity, and you should avoid biting off more than you can chew.

“I speak German, English, Spanish and Italian, and dabbled in French and even Greek at one point”, says Brunner. “As an interpreter or translator, four languages is pretty much all that you can do though – if you want to maintain them to a high standard, that is, and have a life at the same time, of course.”

Where can translators and interpreters work?

Translators have a lot of options here, from working for translation companies to forming their own business, working as intepreters or getting involved in sectors such as dubbing, subtitling and gaming.

The EU is another popular destination and currently employs about 2,000 translators to handle eleven languages, with monthly salaries for permanent staff going from €4,349 to a whopping €18.370.

As Brunner says, “The EU certainly offers one of the most interesting and well-paid employment possibilities for translators. The admission exams are awfully hard though, and I’ve seen some excellent people fail there. Subtitling is also interesting for a translation agency, especially if you can offer an all-in-one package.”

Do translation graduates often end up as translators?

A lot of language students tend to plump for translation degrees, though not all translation graduates go into the field upon graduation.

“A lot of students of translation don’t actually work as translators. Some go into tourism, others into the language business. I myself worked as a director of a language school for many years. So for a student of translation, there are a lot of fields that they can work in.”

Is translation a good business to get into?

The work can, it seems, be a mixed bag and go from the tedious to the very interesting. Entrants should also be aware that the internet has brought with it a significant drop in rates and a highly competitive arena:

“The translation business is as strong as it’s ever been but more people are offering the service, and some bilingual people are selling themselves cheap in the online marketplace for as little as 4 cents per word – that’s 4 euros, not dollars! That’s quite ridiculous, and it harms the global translation community. Plus, there are millions of translation businesses out there, and competition is fierce.”

How can newcomers stand out?

Given the high competition and falling rates, many aspiring translators could well be discouraged. According to Mr Brunner, offering quality is where they can excel.

“The quality will make the difference. Not only do they need to do a good translating job, they need to think how they can add value – for instance, we offer SEO consultancy and we can also put work directly onto our customers’ websites, saving them valuable time. Things that like that add value, and make our clients come back.”

Mark Heaney is a freelance writer living in Valencia, Spain. He has also worked for anenglish german translation companyand teaches English to foreigners. His great passions are linguistics, football, and fashion.

German to English and vice versa is the most common language combination worldwide. That`s right, bigger than Chinese, Japanese, French, Arabic, and other languages which might be more widely spoken than German. The main reason for this is the busy international information exchange between Germany and other, English-speaking countries. Especially in sectors like world politics, engineering and technology, this language combination is by far the most requested. So if you or your company set out to search for a professional language service for the first time, make use of the fact that other people have done the research for you. Here, we present the five best choices for your project:

Mark is one of the friendliest project managers out there.

Best German translation agency no. 3: G.Brunner Translation

At G.Brunner Translation, only native-speaking, professional staff take care of your projects. Every one of the linguists has been professionally trained during a minimum 5 years academic career, and they all know what they are doing. This makes G.Brunner an excellent option. You know that you pay a fair price for the quality which you are getting. So many online services use improperly trained persons whose only “claim to translator fame” is that they have spent a period of their lives abroad, or that they have grown up in a bilingual household. There is much more to the profession than that. You need to know how to use the right tools, be computer-literate and able to research terms and expression quickly and efficiently. For this, a specialized training is a minimum requirement.

The best German translation agency no. 2: G.Brunner Translation

This company gets our vote as no. 2 because of the additional guarantee of a professional, third-party revision of each project. All too often, other companies use one tried-and-trusted linguist and then just forward the end result to the client. Often, that person is not even on the premises, but only known to the agency by email! And even if they should happen to be properly qualified, who is to guarantee that they are not having an off day? Four eyes simply see more than two, and G.Brunner revises every project, large or small, carefully to ensure that the high quality standards which the company owner, Mr Brunner, has set himself, are met. Often, the owner himself reads through the finished job before sending it to the client personally. The “revision guarantee” is not an empty promise, but the best guarantee for receiving an acceptable end result.

Just as important as the quality of the finished product is customer service, and that is where GB Translation Agency gets out vote as the overall winner. Only a few people manage the business of this language service, and they seem to be always available by phone or email, fast to deal with enquiries and generate quotes, and if something cannot be done in the desired time frame, they are honest enough to tell you straight away. What you see is what you get with this online translations service. On the financial side, there are no hidden costs. Quotes are definitive and tax is always included in the price, unlike other similar businesses. Instead of “fair trade”, this company provides “Fair Translation” services for German – German and many other language combinations. With them, your peace of mind is guaranteed, as all language matters can be outsourced to reliable persones who know how to treat their clients.

We hope that after reading our “Top 3” above, you know who to contact for your next project.

Have you ever outsourced work to one of our “three winning companies”? Which aspect of their work did you like the most? Let us know in the comments!

Mandy

]]>https://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/the-five-best-german-translation-agencies/feed/0gabbrunnerMark is one of the friendliest project managers out there.How and Where to Study Translation – and Why you should do ithttps://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/how-and-where-to-study-translation-and-why-you-should-do-it/
https://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/how-and-where-to-study-translation-and-why-you-should-do-it/#commentsWed, 20 Nov 2013 15:08:46 +0000http://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/?p=201Read More]]>

You’ll find a Translation Institute anywhere

If you are starting to get interested in translation (at any age), the next translation institute probably isn’t very far. Contrary to what most people would think, most universities do have a separate translation and interpretation department within their faculties of linguistics, and there is a plethora of other options as well, like schools for linguistic mediators, as some of them like to be called. You don’t necessarily need to study at a university, but a variety of private institutions satisfy the same need. Just approach your university or ask around, or use the internet. Even if you live in a small town, there is probably somewhere you can go to take up some sort of translation course.

You don’t need a Degree

Even if you can’t find an official school of translation anywhere nearby (although they are widespread, as said above, especially in countries such as Germany, France, or Italy), you should know that owning a degree is not a strict requirement as translation is not a protected profession. Anyone who thinks they are good enough in more than one language can do it. It’s just that with a proper translation degree you can charge more, and you get an excellent preparation for your job.

Translators earn a lot of Money – if they do Things right

Which brings us to the next point, the remuneration. As much fun as translation might seem in the beginning, it soon becomes just as boring and monotonous as any other job. So you will want to earn some money for the hassle to be worth it for you. If you manage to approach your job in the right way, you can start out for example by advertising your services on online translation platforms, and then gradually build a reputation – online and in real life – by networking and providing quality services. In my case, it only took a few weeks after graduating from university and I was already translating websites into Germanlike a pro, or interpreting at fairly large events. Accept that the money is not so great at the beginning, but gets better and better, and work the crowd.

Translation Degrees prepare you to do Loads of Things

In the modern world, the equation degree = job in that sector is no longer valid. Translators for one find employment in many different sectors; many much more interesting and fun than actual translation. Some of my ex-colleagues work in tourist offices, advertising agencies, as online marketers, and in a variety of other fields. But the translation degree covers so many different aspects that it is a great way of preparing for a variety of different jobs.

Are you interested in studying translation, and need more information? Just let us know in the comments, and we’ll be more than happy to help out. Or have you studied translation and now you work as something completely different? We’d be interested in hearing your story, too!

G

]]>https://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/how-and-where-to-study-translation-and-why-you-should-do-it/feed/1gabbrunneruniversitaet-neu-02The Myth of the Monolingual Dictionaryhttps://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/the-myth-of-the-monolingual-dictionary/
https://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/the-myth-of-the-monolingual-dictionary/#commentsMon, 20 Aug 2012 12:11:08 +0000http://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/?p=185Read More]]>Remember when you were at university doing your translation degree. Remember your teachers telling you about the holy grail of translation, the monolingual dictionary?

Monolingual dictionaries, was the reasoning, are much more useful than bilingual dictionaries because they help the translator really understand what a thing is about, by describing the term in question rather than just offering a couple of translations into the target language, without any context to explain them, and thus, they can mislead a translator and you and up using a completely wrong word?

Really?

I have not believed this from day one, although some of my colleagues bought into the myth and swore by their monolinguals. That is, their big, fat Collins dictionaries or whatever.

I have refused monolingual dictionaries from day one, and here I am, ten years in the business as a successful translator (even if I say so myself). But I had a nostalgic moment today and suddenly remembered how monolingual dictionaries were sold to us at translators’ school, and how they were made out to be somehow the purer form of the art, as opposed to the linguistic fast food crap that a bilingual dictionary was. Instant lookup of the translation term? How rude!

Have you ever really used monolingual dictionaries, and do they translate to the age of the internet? Maybe I got it all completely wrong? Let’s talk mono and bi in the comments.

After another year fighting it out (and collaborating) with the agencies and freelancers in the translation business, the time has come for a summer break.
Off to Lanzarote with the girlfriend tomorrow… (And with her whole family, but that’s another story :-)) So how does a translator spend his holiday? Rent quads, cycle along the coast, or try to put on a bit of a tan? Yes, quite possibly.

Bring the notebook? Quite definitely not. While I admit that I will probably carry my all singing-all dancing smartphone to check my emails every few days, if I can have the discipline to stick to that rhythm (an auto-responder is set up with a picture of me, on the island), more serious hardware stays at home. Just to make sure it’s not only unlikely, but actually impossible for me to work.

So thanks for reading, I shall be off to enjoy my holidays, and you enjoy yours, whenever you decide to take them and wherever they may take you (unless you’re on a permanent vacation, that is).

Do you usually manage to completely disconnect and stick to that Check your emails twice a week routine? Any ideas for putting your business on hold, while on holidays? Let us know in the
comments.

I should be lying on the beach by now instead of fighting it out with translation agencies…

First of all, dear readers, sorry not to have posted anything for a while. I’ve been too busy with- you guessed it… translations!

Today, I received an email from a translation agency for an IT translation over the weekend. I wasn’t too bothered about it so I made a proposal. The following row ensued (see this link) – you’ll only be able to see it if you are a member of Translatorscafe, though. Please follow it and say what you think, you can use comments on this page or write directly in the forum. Makes for a good read… Which is why… we make all this effort to market our services ourselves instead of having to deal with agencies like them!

Any other experiences like that when working for agencies guys? I’m glad I distanced myself from most of them by now… and today, got rid of one more!! Let us hear some stories in the comments

People love writing about this topic; after all, we’re all in in for the money. No-one can claim they are still having that much fun doing translations after a couple of years in the business. All things considered, translating is quite a boring, solitary exercise, whichever way you look at it. BUT… it gives you a certain freedom which only freelance work can provide (the ability to travel when you want, the lack of a superior etc.) which more than compensates for these obvious disadvantages. And it usually pays well, too. Even if you don’t always manage to negotiate your desired rate, if a job is reasonably well-paid, you will still earn more in an hour than most people in a whole morning.

So how should you go about getting the money off your clients? Here’s a few things you should consider:

In the initial email, be as clear as possible.

There is a certain temptation NOT to mention the money too much in the initial email correspondence, and to refuse to mention exact payment terms to the client, just because you’re too embarrassed to bring up the topic, and you don’t want to make it look like you’re only after the money, and for a whole lot of other reasons, especially if you’re a young translator and you’re new in the business.

However, if you are not clear about your terms in the beginning, it becomes much more of a hassle afterwards. A client is simply not very willing to discuss payment details after the work has been completed, not necessarily because they don’t intend to pay you, but because it is no longer an urgency for them and they’re already deep into something else. That’s just the way business goes. Paying people is simply the last thing on an agenda when there’s a lot going on.

Here’s how I do it: At the end of the “quote” email (the one where you tell the client how much damage you’re going to do to their budget), include a whole paragraph (3 or 4 sentences) about how you would like to get paid. Here’s an example:

“Payment has to be completed on the same day the text is delivered. Payment options include PayPal, wire transfer, and credit card. All payment details are included in the invoice issued together with the translated text”

You see, this block of text, for example, does not sound overly aggressive and still it includes all the necessary information. By accepting your quote, the client implicitly accepts these terms. You have it in writing and everything is reasonably clear before you even start. Not all clients will read your emails thoroughly, but you can always remind them later just by saying that “we’ve already agreed on this in out initial email correspondence” or something along those lines.

2. Don’t bother with formal quotes.

Sometimes, people will demand a “formal quote”, which is supposed to be some kind of document which looks a bit like an invoice and includes your company details etc. I regard this as a waste of time. If you’re a serious freelance translator, you’re probably working on another project already, and you will barely have enough time to answer all your emails. I have often refused to issue formal quotes, and it has never been the reason for my not getting a job. Again, it depends on how you say it. Try something like this:

“Hi, I am sorry but we don’t do “formal quotes”. We regard email correspondence as perfectly valid for official quotes and to be honest, we are always extremely busy so we try to keep paperwork to a minimum. Please just treat the previous email as a formal quote. Thanks!”

Your clients are after the best service and the best price, so don’t be shy about telling them what you think. They will accept your offer based on these simple metrics and not based on your skills as your own personal secretary.

3. Payment terms: NOW, please!

I have had many a discussion about this particular point with colleagues, but let me get this off my chest. Ask for the money immediately after the delivery. Or if possible, before! General business practice this is not, but, hey, it works for me! It the initial email, clients are informed (see point 1) that they have to pay me immediately on delivery. When the translation is done, I send them an email saying that (a) the translation project is finished, and (b) they have to pay right now in order to receive the document. I include wire transfer and PayPal/credit card as payment options (more about that later) and demand proof of payment to be emailed to me. Most banks include an option to send a confirmation email about a transfer to the beneficiary, so it is usually not a problem for the client to send you proof of payment. Sometimes, a client might insist that it is impossible for them to process the payment right now, because they are out of the office or for whatever reason, but then it’s still up to you… You can either trust the client and send the text anyway, or you can insist that if you don’t get paid, the text will not be sent. As translation projects are usually rather urgent, this leaves them with no option. Even if the client is well pissed off at you by now, it would take them much longer to find someone else to do the job (plus potential legal trouble with you).

All in all, if you’re running a translation business, however small it may be, getting people to pay you on time is essential for your peace of mind and for the proper functioning of your business. It is important to be as straightforward as possible about this, and find the right tone when you bring up the subject.

What are your experiences with good, bad, and non-payers? Which payment methods do you use? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

]]>https://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/better-translatingpart-ix-get-people-to-pay-you/feed/11gabbrunnerBetter Translating – Part VIII: The Right Time To Deliverhttps://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/better-translating-part-viii-the-right-time-to-deliver/
https://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/better-translating-part-viii-the-right-time-to-deliver/#commentsTue, 08 May 2012 09:36:33 +0000http://englishtogermantranslator.wordpress.com/?p=163Read More]]>

It’s very important not to deliver your translation too late early.

Being on time is important, but dangerous

Remember when you were just starting our as a translator, and you were so happy when you finished translations ahead of schedule? “Yeh, I’m the fastest translator! Let’s send this off now and the client will be delighted!”

Yes, but… Sending translations off early has some disadvantages that we should be aware of:

It can cause a bad impression with the client. Seriously. Imagine you just agreed, through gritted teeth, to pay a translator 100 euros for a few paragraphs, and then you get the translation after two hours! Surely, someone’s taken the ****, right? You’ve just paid your translator 50 euros per hour. Surely they haven’t taken the work very seriously? …. It’s very easy for a client to think that you haven’t taken the work all that seriously when you deliver the text much too early. That’s logical. Who would like to spend a fortune on a translation only to find out that your translator barely spends any time with it? Clients, of course, usually are not aware, and cannot be expected to be, really, that a) you’re the world’s best and fastest translator b) your translation memory did it for you because they’ve send you the exact same text a week before already c) you really didn’t give a **** (though surely that’s not the case, right?).

It raises expectations. Translation deadlines are tight enough. Especially if you’re like me, i.e. you yourself set your deadlines as tight as possible, just so you have to get down to it and don’t waste your time reading the sports news. (There’s just too much interesting stuff on the internet, isn’t there?) So, the only thing you don’t want to do is make your client believe it can be done even faster. But this is exactly the impression you give a client when you send off a translation before the deadline. Their reasoning will be, if he delivered it in a day last time, surely he can do it in a couple of hours, too?

It’s pretty obvious from the above that there is only one good time to send off your translated document: right on the deadline, or just before. Well, let’s say if you want to cause a good impression but avoid the pitfalls described above, as a rule of thumb, you could argue that one hour before the deadline is just right. You’re early, but not too early. And you’re not too late, either.

Yes, but I want to get rid of this now!

OK, so now that we’ve agreed on the time of delivery, there’s only one problem: We don’t want to sit around until the deadline when the work is already done. Let’s say there is nothing else to do for the rest of the day, and we just want to get out of the office, you know, out into the world, or get drunk on some whiskey, or erm, take the girlfriend out for some ice cream (yeah, right…). We could take the document with us on our modern, intelligent phone, but chances are we’ll forget to send it off after a few glasses, or a few cups of ice cream…

Luckily, Microsoft Outlook 2010 has a solution for this (and previous versions might have, too, but I can’t tell as I have never used Outlook before the 2010 version): Delayed Delivery. From the ribbon, under “Home”, when sending off an email, you have the option right there:

Make sure your translation is sent off at exactly the right time.

Just click on “Delay Delivery” and then check the box “Do not deliver before”, and set your time. You need to have an active internet connection and leave Outlook open (or minimized) for this to work. You email will stay in your Outbox and it will be sent at the exact time which you specify.

In the series, “Better Translating”, we try to help you set yourself up as a professional translator and be more efficient by using the right software and hardware, and knowing how to use it. Any suggestions? Let us know in the comments.

This is a guest post from Olga Kellen, an excellent Russian translator who we’ve recently started a collaboration with, about the dangers and annoyances of free automated translation. Hope you enjoy the read!

“I guess any translator has had this experience when a potential client turns to free online translation on their website instead of using a professional to translate the website into a foreign language(s) to get foreign buyers for the site’s product.

Here’s an example of such so called marketing to foreigners through free online translation:

At a beautiful luxury real estate website offering exclusive homes all priced over $1,000,000 in the USA, there is a button “Languages” – for free online translation into a number of languages. I used it for Russian and then translated the so called “Russian” content back to English.

Here’s how these American realtors appear to market their luxury to Russian-speaking website visitors:

“Protected, calm, and extremely particular communities dotted line with the large of the property of apartment buildings in the wide sections with that impressing opinions. With the photo the postcard is the park of tuning elevated the country- style of the stylishness, for pastoral horse passing elegance, [Kombi] enclaves to ensure peaceful solitude and with the bewitching view. These land spreading is shop window the irreproachable selection of many architectural styles, from the Mediterranean to Mizner the [Palm]- whip of Georgian French Regency of British West India, also, beyond its limits. For those, which the prize of rarified of beauty and the infinite views, which it enveloped in the peaceful solitude.”

I won’t go on, it’s the same pity all over the site, and you have the idea.

Their page name “Private Estate Enclave” turned simply into “restroom is the urbanization”– sorry, but that’s what the machine translation does sometimes…

Another convincing argument for NOT using free online translation where it does not belong:

We all know that Canada is a bilingual country. It means government agencies of all levels have to provide people with information and services in both English and French. Private companies do the same as they want to get business from both English- and French-speaking people.

Canadian websites are mostly bilingual – some by law and some by will.

Do they ever use a free translation?I’ll be very much astonished to find at least one company that does that in Canada…

Why not?

They have to serve customers FOR REAL!

Not only don’t they use free translations, they don’t even use their own bilingual staff for translating between the languages, but they hire professional translatorsto do the job properly.

Real Estate Institute of Canada (REIC) has Languages Policy published on their website that says among other things:

“Translation: REIC does retain the services of a translator for the translation of the written word. Staff who are bilingual will not be expected to take on a project that requires the use of this specific skill.”

More and more American retailers open a Spanish version of their e-commerce sites. Look at BestBuy, some Amazon sites. They do this not for foreigners, but for Spanish-speaking Americans, who are actually bilingual and could very well use the English sites (!)

Why do retailers do this? Well, they are big companies with big marketing departments; they know what to do to get more sales. They decide to spend money on Spanish websites as their marketing research showed the possibility to earn more if they provide bilingual American population with the chance to read the merchandise descriptions and place orders in their mother’s language.

They don’t disclose the budget for translating and maintaining the new sites of course. They only say that their Spanish websites are not exactly the same as the original English sites, as they take into consideration some differences that targeting the Spanish-speaking population requires. (I don’t know Spanish, but if you do, you can check it for yourself)

So, if somebody wants to market their products or services to people who speak other languages than their own and they really want those foreigners’ business, these are examples to follow for them to look professional in marketing efforts and eventually get sales.

Feel free to use the above arguments to convince your clients not to look foolish in foreign languages instead of getting foreign sales. There are more examples of how companies can really compromise their business with free online translation(they are in English and Russian which are my languages).”

Knowing who your clients are will give you a decisive advantage when doing business.

One of the major characteristics of running a translation business, no matter whether you work as a freelance translator or in an agency, is this: You often don’t know who your clients are. And I don’t mean, “You don’t know them well”, as you would if you had a normal business, say, if your were a dentist or a hairdresser. In that case, you would know what they look like, who accompanies them, more or less where they live, and whether they tend to be well-natured or rather ill-behaved. It’s rather a lot of information about a person, if you look at it this way. As a translator, however, more often than not all the information we have on a person boils down to one single piece: their email address.

I think most of you would agree that this is a major disadvantage for translators when dealing with their clients. Age, professional background, nationality, etc. play an important role in knowing how to deal with an individual client, and, last, but not least, which rates to charge them. You will talk to a person your age in a different way than you would to an elderly gentleman, right? It is all too easy to offend a client by using too casual a tone in an email; or the opposite: sometimes clients can be intimidated if the language used is too formal.

Now then, here’s how to find out what’s behind an anonymous email and actually get to know your clients. And they don’t even have to notice you’re “spying on them”. Let’s get started.

LinkedIn and Facebook connectors for Outlook

I’ve said previously I am an Outlook fan. It’s mainly because the software is so feature-complete and extendable. It is mostly because of two absolutely essential plugins that I can never use another email program again: The LinkedIn connector, and the Facebook social connector.

Here’s an email from your client… and, look at this! He sent you a photo with it!

Granted, installation of these add-ins is rather complex. In typical Outlook fashion, the whole operation will fail at least one before finally installing. Or… it might never work. Just make sure you get the correct version of these plug-ins (32- or 64-bit) and good luck to you.

However, once they are installed, these little gadgets are incredibly useful. They are actually the two pieces of ingenious software which have helped me the most in making life easier for me when writing emails to clients, and receiving job offers. They do two things very well: Whenever you receive an email, they pull up the respective profile photos from Facebook and LinkedIn, identifying the author of the email by their respective email addresses. And secondly, you can easily add any person you’ve ever had correspondence with to your LinkedIn profile with one click. By just looking at the photo you gain a whole lot of information. You can guess (more or less accurately, at least) a person’s age and the kind of person they are, which makes dealing with them a whole lot easier.

People search engines

There are numerous of those out there, but the most reliable is 123 People. These search engines allow you to enter a person’s name or email address and promise you to find all data on the internet related to these people (or companies as well). Facebook, Twitter profiles, articles etc. They don’t always work as well as they should do, but trying doesn’t hurt, does it?

Will they pay me?

If you haven’t been paid for work at least once in your professional career, hold your hands up! It’s the very nature of translation work that makes us easy victims for non-paying companies: To translate means to work between two cultures, languages, and often, different countries. To go after a non-payer in a country other than your own is a right hassle, and while it is not impossible for us to eventually get our due thanks to a combination of lawyers, government agencies, and colleagues, more often than now it’s not worth the extra hours put in to get what are often relatively small sums of money.

So, if I can recommend one website for a freelance translator, it has toc Payment Practices. You can get a free trial or sign up for a year-long membership which shouldn’t set you back more than a couple of dollars. Payment Practices’ database contains information on 10057 translation agencies and clients worldwide, 6616 total responses and 1891 comments on those buyers. Agencies are rated by the responses of freelancer translators, so you should always look up new clients and agencies on this website before agreeing to work for someone you do not know. Great website and absolutely worth your money! For a couple of quid you might save thousands…

Which strategies do you use to find out more about your clients? Are you worried at all about working for someone you’ve never met? Any solutions to add to the list? Let us know in the comments.